Carnival Inspiration Review

Our First Carnival Cruise - Not Bad

Review for the Western Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Inspiration
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GordoMG
First Time Cruiser • Age 20s

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Sail Date: Jul 2008

Background Information: This was our sixth cruise but our first on Carnival. We normally cruise Royal Caribbean or Norwegian Cruise Lines so we had fairly high expectations especially considering Carnival's reputation for being more of a basic experience. In some ways we were right but overall we were pleasantly surprised.Ship Info: We sailed on 19 July on Carnival Inspiration. Original itinerary was to be Tampa-day at sea-Grand Cayman-Cozumel-day at sea-Tampa. However, because of Hurricane Dolly, the Captain made the decision on Day 1 to not go to Grand Cayman and instead go to Key West. This was absolutely the right decision since Dolly was right over Grand Cayman. However, I know several people were upset because so many passengers were from Florida and Key West was hardly a new destination for them. Why get on a cruise to visit a location you could easily drive to from home? But like I said, I think the Captain made the right call and his options were pretty limited considering Dolly's position and projected course.

The ship itself was pretty much what we expected. Gaudy. When we first walked into the Grand Atrium we thought we had walked into a giant bowling alley or cheap casino. Black carpet with purple, red and blue highlights and extensive neon lighting on every balcony and elevator. Hardly the elegant atmosphere we've experienced on other cruise lines. For us, it left us wondering what was in store for us for the rest of the cruise. The rest of the ship was pretty much the same with some exceptions.

Embarkation: Very efficient and smooth. We arrived around 1:30 and there was a line but it moved quickly and efficiently. We had done all the on-line registration items and that seemed to help since everything had already been done. My only beef is the process to drop off luggage from your vehicle. The drop off lanes aren't very big and they only had one lane open so traffic was backed up out to the street. They should have had more drop off lanes open to get traffic moving and not blocking traffic on Channel Street.

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